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With so much about the built environment now under scrutiny, the Urban Land Institute’s work has never been more necessary or relevant.

East Los Angeles is shaping up to be one of the unlikely centers of southern California’s emerging bioscience industry. Bioscience has long had a presence in Los Angeles, given its collection of leading medical centers and universities.

Internationally acclaimed transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase, cofounder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest car-sharing company in the world, has been named the 2017 recipient of the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development.

National rents have barely moved through the entire peak rental season and into September, according to data from Yardi Matrix, marking the longest period of stagnation in recent history—four consecutive months. Coming in at $1,354 for the month of September, the average rent is only 2.2 percent higher than this time last year.

A native of Los Angeles, Wayne Ratkovich, a ULI Life Trustee and Americas Executive Committee in addition to being founder and CEO of The Ratkovich Company, talks about the importance of ULI in his career.

ULI has joined with 127 U.S. mayors, along with the Trust for Public Land and the National Recreation and Park Association in launching a historic “10-minute walk” parks advocacy campaign, establishing the ambitious goal that all Americans should live within a 10-minute walk (or half-mile) of a high-quality park or green space. This bipartisan group includes mayors from all across the country and represents cities large and small, including America’s four largest cities.

Framing lumber prices could be approaching the highs of the housing bubble by next spring, according to data from the National Association of Home Builders. Random Lengths prices are up 22 percent from a year ago, and CME futures are up about 19 percent year-over-year.

Since Airbnb began to disrupt the U.S. hospitality sector, industry leaders have been thinking about ways to attract previously underserved customers. A number of recently built hotels and resorts combine the space and amenities of a private home with high-end amenities, concierge service, and curated experiences. A 2017 ULI Fall Meeting session presented two recently introduced concepts with distinctly different target markets and price points.

The advent of driverless autonomous vehicles (AVs) and drone aircraft, coupled with the rapid shift to a collaborative economy in which entrepreneurs find ways to monetize unused capacity, will dramatically transform urban areas and disrupt the real estate sector, according to a pair of speakers at ULI’s 2017 Fall Meeting in Los Angeles.

Innovations in sensors, digital tech, and the “internet of things” (IoT) have created connected buildings that are becoming standard fare today. That evolution in building tech is generating more operating efficiencies—and opening the door to bigger cyber security risks.